Paul Kimball Makes Me Say Things

Paul Kimball was on again a couple of months back and the show truly turned into a conversation with Paul asking me who would be on my personal Mount Rushmore of UFO Shame and Fame. We also delved into the saga of the MJ-12 documents and who might have faked them. While Paul is almost sure that Bill Moore had a hand in it for personal profit or ego or an effort to “shake the tree,” I seriously doubt this theory. Other subjects that came up were the pervasive presence of Ancient Aliens and what Steven Greer’s guards (or “goons” as Paul called them) did to him at the 2001 MUFON conference. We talked (in a theme that has become a staple of the show) about UFO study and what might be done to change it. I expressed my continuing opinion that it should be done away with so that something new could blossom. The phenomenon might even change as a result of a different point of view.

I’m not sure anything really needs to change. Until aliens land on the White House lawn, or some such thing, or the phenomenon reveals itself to be something else (maybe God with another burning bush, only this time in Prime Time), there won’t be any answer that will satisfy everyone. In the meantime, there is nothing wrong with telling old stories again and again – each time, something new gets added in the telling. If you view it all as a sociological and historical study of us, and not a scientific one of “them,” then it’s all good. 🙂

Thanks for another great show. My own views about Ufology have changed a great deal over the past few years. More than ever before I’ve come to see the UFO subculture as a splinter and overlap of the religious subculture or predilection complete with miracles, priests, saints, scripture, and of course, heretics. It isn’t without its own parasitic (said in my best “cookie-monster voice) mendicants and predatory scammers selling the chance to see the equivalent of Christ’s foreskin or an apostle’s bones. Greg, you seem to be calling for a “reformation” while acknowledging that short of a phenomenal miracle, we aren’t likely to see one. I have to agree that there isn’t much of a chance that is going to happen. And like that “old time religion” it isn’t likely to just die on the vine either. The old guard may be passing on, but there are literally crowds of devotees waiting to take their place, many writing new scripture to carry with them into the future. Also, I can’t help but think that as long as it serves some purpose for the intelligence community, that aspect of the UFO priesthood will continue to stoke the fires of belief. Sometimes I wish I were still preoccupied with the mystery rather than with the sociological aspects of the subculture, but when it really gets down to it, there are no UFOs to study, just “reports” and personalities making claims about them. But hey, I still have my old GoldKey UFO Flying Saucer comics and Keel books to thumb through occasionally. All is not lost.

Ricky,
As a paranormal agnostic who finds the subculture far more interesting now than the actual subject itself, I pretty much agree with you 100%. And I have those old Gold key comics lying around as well! 🙂
Best,
Paul

Never a PK fan in the past, I really enjoyed this conversation and I think I’ve finally done a full 180 on my assessment of him. Having enjoyed this convo so much, I downloaded his appearance on Radio Misterioso from 2013 and listened to that one just as intently. What was incredible is, in that last interview he talked about a witty criticism leveled at him here in the comments section about being the coolest guy at the Dungeons and Dragons game. Well that was me. How auspicious. I’m now a full on Kimball fan, not because he rather appreciated my criticism, but because I realize he has plenty of insightful things to say – even if some of them are, from my point of view, merely provocative statements made to make people wince, or piss me off 🙂 ANNNNND…I’ve been trying more and more to pay attention to the synchronous messages from the phenomenal world.

Thanks, Bob. Yes, sometimes I do indeed say things simply to be provocative and to start a conversation, fully aware that it doesn’t always make me the most popular guy in the room. But contrary to what some people think, I’ve never cared about being popular.

Being cool in the D & D room, however, is an entirely different matter! 😉

I figured as much, Paul. I guess I just never really “heard” what you were saying before that even though I was listening.

I’ve been going back and listening to your all of your RM appearances and am finding that you and I agree on much, including the way our argumentative natures manifest themselves (maybe its the JDs?) And even where I’m put off by something you say, I realize it’s more about me than you. Especially with the elusive and strange topics that are discussed here and elsewhere, our mantra really should be “Who the fuck actually knows?” So my reaction is quite stupid. There’s a fascinating book by a Western Buddhist teacher called The Power of an Open Question. Maybe it should be required reading for any person engaging in the “study” of these topics.

Although, I think you guys should cut Rich Dolan some slack. 😉 The first National Security State peeled my scalp back after years of not giving a shit about the UFO topic.

Everyone knows all the cool kids do Pathfinder 🙂 Or some more obscure mythos-based RPG with SAN points, or a paucity thereof.

More seriously, I think I’d dispute the idea that Vallee is the foundation of any cults; it’s been a long while since I read one of his books, but I’ve gotten the impression that his recent beliefs are that he doesn’t have a hard-and-fast theory about what is behind the UFO mystery, merely a large amount of data (if you venture to call the plural of ‘anecdote’ data, as the old saying warns everyone not to do) that he considers interesting. OTOH, I could be wrong, as well as woefully out of date.

I just realized I should be a little more clear: I would have thought that a cult or religion would imply a more hard and fast belief system than he’s expressed in the recent past. Anyway, that’s just my $ .02.

There is nothing like having a 5-star sighting yourself to settle a lot of this. Perhaps the next phase would be to bus lots of people to places like the Gilliland Ranch and let them see what has been going on there. There are probably lots of other places like that.

You know, maybe in that bus full of people half of them would get to see something amazing, while the others wouldn’t see anything at all; or maybe a handful of them would actually see something odd, but would immediately find a way to rationalize it in order not to shake their worldview.

I really appreciated Paul’s comment about ufology being a subculture and not a field or even A Field. To me ‘field’ implies a scientific domain focused around a common research agenda, methodological practices, etc.; using it in conjunction with ufology makes the gears in my brain grind horribly. Subculture makes a lot more sense.

By coincidence I had just read Vallee’s Forbidden Science, which was interesting and sometimes funny. It is a set of journal entries rather than a straight UFO book and has great stories of what it was like to work on the early computers.

I enjoyed that a lot and it seems to have been ages since one of these extensive, rambling conversations has been posted. I don’t just mean here on Misterioso, but pretty much anywhere else either. There’s so little to pay attention to anymore that I prefer listening to seasoned explorers shooting the breeze. Nothing going on until Nick lights the fuse with his upcoming ‘CIA done it’ research.

Regarding Vallee, Tim Binnall had a great conversation with him and it stands amongst the best I’ve heard. Same goes for when he interviewed Ann Druffel and captured a sense of the history. I’d still love to hear Greg interview Vallee because a lot of Vallee’s thoughts are implied and too subtle for the average interview formats. Greg could talk on the esoteric level where Vallee spends so much time and rarely has company.

I’d love to ask him if he trusts his own memories? His ambassadorial status is founded on a couple of synchronous incidents that beg several questions…

Aside from that, Paul’s views actually run parallel to many of Vallee’s. All those synchronicities are potentially part and parcel of the overall phenomenon. Vallee argues that something intelligent uses technology to manipulate people, time and space. This would tie in with some of Paul’s public suspicions about an intelligence interacting with people and using synchronicities to communicate via symbolism. Who knows? Right?

What Vallee’s currently doing is this: he’s part of a working group who are seeking to reduce the UFO databases to as pure a collection of unknowns as possible. Personally, I think it’s unrealistic and success would actually falsify the notion of a manipulative, technological intelligence that’s managed to evade conclusions for centuries.

If something so exotic chose to be ‘known’ it’d bloody well do it itself. If it does exist, would it really be outsmarted by an informal group of dedicated researchers? Wouldn’t it simply manipulate them to fail?

Whatever the gist of all this is, the ‘it’ appears to favour a state that’s as uncertain as our imaginary cat in the box. This is why we have to talk about it and know that none of us will ever find conclusions as long as we have our sanity.

I think people took what I said about the “Vallee cult” far too seriously… and perhaps I didn’t express what I meant clearly enough. I used the term “cult” in the sociological context, not in a pejorative sense (at least not in any way related to Vallee himself). As much as I hate directing people to Wikipedia for anything serious, folks can get a good quick shorthand of the various aspects of the meaning of “cult” at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult. Anyone who has any time dealing with his most ardent (read: fanatical) supporters / admirers on Internet forums should know what I mean… I hope.

As for Vallee, I’ve read his books and agree with many of the things he says / writes… and disagree with others. He’s an interesting, thought-provoking guy.

My comments weren’t aimed at your ‘cult’ commentary. They were really expressing my opinion that your views intersect with Vallee’s. I think you, Greg and Vallee would make for interesting conversation.

That’s all I meant and I hope I’ve never (or rarely) come across as one of the groupies in ufology. I’m having a paranoid moment at the idea!

All told, it doesn’t really matter who says what; it’s all about the insight and sharing of ideas.

@ RPJ – this damned subject keeps dragging me back in! Not often posting, but frequently reading. I’ll be listening to your show this week. You’re a good guy.

Second, I wasn’t referring to you specifically – rather I was referring to a few others who commented elsewhere about my use of the terms “cult” and “cultists” but didn’t understand what I was getting at (their problem, not mine).

Excellent discussion Greg and Paul ! Greg in terms of guests how about Jeff Kripal ? I had just finished his book” Authors of the Impossible” and found it terrific read ( mostly dealing with the early parpsychological investigations, Fredrich Meyer, Charles Fort, there’s even a chapter where he interviews Jacque Vallee ).Happy Holidays to you both!

Hi RPJ, ” Mutants & Mystics” is on my wish list to St. Nick. 😉
His new book with Andrea R. Jain ” Comparing Religions” sounds interesting, though hopefully it will have some insight into why some people who are ” religiously enlightened” , yet will kill in the name of their twisted version of “God”. I think there is something more to this level of existence,but I think it’s always going to something beyond what we have yet to imagine ( just to surprise us…maybe)

The problem with the Gold Key UFO comicbook series is indicative of Ufoology in general, take the issue involving Maury Island as an example: Crisman and Dahl become US Coast Guard men, the craft changes shape, the poor dead dog is never mentioned, etc. etc. Compare with Nick Redfern’s recent retellings of Maury, which likewise get all the details just plain wrong. It’s all very interesting, the stories are quite good, but there is a scribal problem involving faithful transmission of the text/canon. I heard Bishop on some other radio show recently, and he did very well. Bravo.

I think it would be awesome if Jeff Ritzman was on Greg’s show.
I always found it fascinating that there weren’t more interviews about his experiences (or to be fair, what he claims to be his experiences).
I once asked about it and he said he doesn’t turn down interviews. Or something along those lines.
I mean, those accounts are some of the weirdest – if not the weirdest – high strangeness stories I’ve ever heard.

I am so sick of hearing people talk/complain about the “state of Ufology”. That’s all anyone seems to talk about now, rather than the actual Ufos. If people concentrated on the events rather than researchers/in-fighting etc we might actually learn something new. I am not saying we would get all the answers but at least we would be moving ahead, even if in minute steps.

Here’s the thing – there is nothing new of any import to discuss when it comes to UFOs. As soon as people stop talking about Roswell and other cases from the distant past, I’ll stop talking about them as cultural curiosities.

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